


Things Your Father Never Would Do

by ShyAudacity



Series: Poor Jack Laurens [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Crying, Daddy Issues, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Herc/Eliza if you squint, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, John Needs A Hug, Laf and Herc and Eliza are good friends, M/M, Maria and Henry are only mentioned for the most part, Mentions of Therapy, Minor Character Death, Protectiveness, Sad John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7922917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next morning, Alexander gets a text from John at work that reads:</p>
<p>Something feels off. U okay?</p>
<p>He sends back: Yeah im fine. Everything alright?</p>
<p>Idk yet. He replies. </p>
<p>It makes Alexander feel uneasy, and makes a mental note to call John on his lunch break. He doesn’t have to though, because 30 minutes later his phone rings. It’s Hercules.</p>
<p>“Herc?”</p>
<p>“Alex, you need to come to the hospital. Right now.”</p>
<p>“What’s going on, what happened?”</p>
<p>“It’s John’s father; he’s dead.” </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>John's father dies and he has trouble handling it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Your Father Never Would Do

John and Alexander are chasing each other around their small apartment. Playfully, of course. After a while, John leaps over the couch and catches Alexander, pulling him into his embrace, arms wrapped around his waist. He laughed loudly, then slung his own arms around John’s shoulders. The two of them both had the day off, and they had spent it together. Now it was late into the night, but both of their spirits were at a high.

“How are you feeling?” Alexander asked.

“Good,” he said with a grin. “I feel good.”

“You promise?”

He chuckled lightly. “Yes I promise. It’s been a good day.”

“You would tell me, right? If you weren’t having a good day, you would tell me?”

“Ham-.”

“I, sorry, I just- I don’t mean to push. I just want to make sure that were still communicating with each other, you know? I don’t want you to feel like Dr. Maria is the only one that you can tell your problems to.”

John has been seeing therapist, Dr. Maria Reynolds, for close to six weeks now. So far, it’s going really well. She’s been able to help him cope when he’s having a bad day. They’ve been working on what to do when John gets the feeling of wanting to die. All in all, he’s glad that he agreed to go to therapy in the first place.

“I know.” John tells him, lightly touching his face. “Believe me, there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t tell you. Now c’mon, it’s getting late and I have the sudden urge to take all of my clothes off. Wanna join me?”

 **********************************

The next morning, Alexander gets a text from John at work that reads:

_Something feels off. U okay?_

He sends back: _Yeah im fine. Everything alright?_

_Idk yet._ He replies.

It makes Alexander feel uneasy, and makes a mental note to call John on his lunch break. He doesn’t have to though, because 30 minutes later his phone rings. It’s Hercules.

“Herc?”

“Alex, you need to come to the hospital. Right now.”

“What’s going on, what happened?”

“It’s John’s father; he’s dead.”

Alexander is at the hospital within the hour. He pulls into the emergency room parking lot, and Eliza is waiting for him at the door. She ushers him inside, leading him into a back room deep inside the hospital. She opens the door to a random room, and he feels his heart break inside of his chest.

John is curled up on his side in Herc’s lap. He looks like a kicked puppy; his eyes glassy and focused on something that isn’t there. His hands are shaking and he can only imagine what could’ve caused that. Alexander swears he’s never seen his lover look so small, he doesn’t like the look of it much either. Herc has a protective hand on John’s chest to keep him from falling, also as a means of comfort.

“He hasn’t said anything.” Herc tells him, giving Alexander a weary look.

He nods, then gets down on his knees so he can be at eye level with his boyfriend. He rests his hand on John’s shoulder; he flinches lightly. After a second, John blinks few times, then looks right at Alexander. 

“Alex?” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

“Yeah, baby, it’s me. I’m here.” He says

“Something bad happened.”

“I know…c’mon, I’m taking you home.”

John stayed eerily silent on the drive back to the apartment. Alexander brought him to their room as soon as they got home. He got him out of his scrubs and into pajamas, then laid with him until he finally fell asleep. Then he got up, went out to his living room to find Hercules, Eliza and Lafayette sitting on his couch.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“We invited ourselves over,” Herc said; he held up a pair of keys. “And we brought John’s car.”

He laughed lightly, then hugged all of them.

“How is he doing?” Eliza asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know. He didn’t say anything on the drive back from the hospital and that’s never a good sigh with him. Can you guys fill me in? What happened?”

“He was in town on business.” Herc informed him. “John’s father came into the emergency room, having complained to his secretary of chest pains. We got him into a room, and five minutes later he’d gone into cardiac arrest. I called for backup and he was the one who came in. When John saw that it was his father he…his face turned white, Alex.”

“What did he do after that?”

“He did what any ER doctor would have done, he got to work. He started doing compressions, but that wasn’t working. We tried everything, but it was already too late.”

“Shit.”

“We pulled him away from the room to try and give him some space,” Lafayette chimed in. “But it was like something inside him just broke. He wasn’t looking at us or responding to our questions, that’s when we called you. I’ve known him since freshman year of college and I’ve never seen him like this before.”

“What do you guys think that we should do?” Eliza asked.

Before anyone could answer, the door to their bedroom opened and a disheveled looking John walked out. He saw the small crowd of people in his living room then made a confused face.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“We’ve invited ourselves over,” he told him. He pulled a bottle of dark liquid out of his backpack. “And I brought liquor.”

“You guys hate whiskey.” He said, taking the bottle from his friend.

“But you don’t.” Eliza reminded him, resting her chin on his shoulder, hugging him lightly. He nodded, then walked into the kitchen.

********************************* 

Alexander knows that things like grief and alcohol don’t mix well, knows it like he knows the back of his hand. But he’s willing to forget that for now because he can only imagine how John is feeling. He knows that John and Henry didn’t have a good relationship, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t hurting. John has this look in his eye like his whole world just came crashing down around him. Alexander hopes that he never has to see it there again.

Consecutively, they have all decided that tonight is going to be a night of playing Mario Kart, movies, and drinking should they please to. Eliza and Alexander are in the kitchen, making more popcorn when she asks him a question.

“Is it just me, or does John not seem phased by what happened today? I mean his father died.” She remarks. “You would think that he’d be bawling his eyes out or something. But he didn’t even shed a tear at the hospital. He just…shutdown.”

“Wait, he didn’t cry?”

She shook her head. “Has he cried in front of you yet?”

“No.” He tells her. “But whenever he does, my guess is that it won’t be pretty.”

The rest of the day goes by fairly smoothly. The five of them take turns crushing one another at Mario Kart, Eliza being the overall winner. They decided on Chinese takeout for dinner, and somewhere between the egg rolls and the pot stickers, Alexander noticed that John has seemed to hit a wall. Whether it’s because he’s tired or because the events of the day have finally caught up to him, he’s definitely not acting like himself.

By this point in the night, Alexander expected him to be halfway to blackout drunk, but no. John has been nursing the same beer for over an hour now, and he is trying not to worry. He’s trying to not let John’s silence bother him, but it’s definitely starting to. As much as he wants to believe that things will be different this time, he knows John. He knows how his lover has a tendency to bottle things up until he can’t hardly take it anymore. Which is part of why he’s been seeing Dr. Maria.

He doesn’t allow himself much more time to worry, because John has settled himself at Alexander’s hip, having just finished his only beer.

“I’m tired.” He says into his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

He nods and Alexander gets an idea.  

“Eliza, would you mind assisting me in gathering all of the blankets and pillows? I have decided that the five of us are having a sleepover.”

Twenty minutes later, the coffee table has been moved and every pillow, blanket, or relatively soft thing has found itself on the living room floor. They created what Lafayette has decided to call “The Cuddle Puddle” and no one is mad about it. John is in the very center, Alexander holding onto him like a child clings to a parent.

Herc and Eliza are on John’s left side, while Lafayette is on the other side of Alexander. They all found an old movie on HBO that none of them had seen and decided to watch it. Most of them are only half watching, one ear tuned into their sad friend, just waiting for the ball to drop and the emotions to begin pouring out of him.

Alexander falls asleep before the movie ends. When he wakes up, Lafayette is on the couch and Herc and Eliza are spooning each other. He rubs his eyes then looks at John, finding him awake next to him.

“Hey. How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t.” John mutters, eyes locked on the ceiling.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Do you want to set up an appointment with Maria? I can call her.”

“Nah. I don’t wanna bother her with this.” He said sitting up.

“John, she’s a therapist, yours to be more specific. It’s what she’s there for.”

“Look just- not yet, okay? I don’t want to talk about it just yet.”

Alexander threw his hands up. “Okay, fair enough. Just let me know alright? I’m going to go get dressed, I’ll be back in a minute.” He kisses John on the forehead then scrambles to his feet, heading towards their room. Once dressed, he heads to the kitchen and finds John and Lafayette there, both standing over bowls of cereal at the bar. He hangs back, not wanting to intrude on their conversation.

“You look exhausted, John, you should go back to bed.”

“There’s no point. I spent half the night trying to fall asleep. I just don’t have it in me.”

“That’s what you said our junior year of college right before midterms. Then after finals were over you slept for two days straight. I know you, dude, and we can’t act like yesterday didn’t happen. I’m your best friend, so just talk to me. What are you thinking about?”

He was silent for a moment before speaking. “There was a time in high school where I wished that he was dead. He made me feel so angry and bad about myself that I thought it was what I wanted. Now…now it happened and it just feels like there’s a hurricane stuck in my chest and I can’t get it out. God, Laf, what am I gonna do? My old man is freaking dead and he’s still getting to me.”

“Hey. Hey, listen to me.” Lafayette said, hugging him from behind. “You don’t need him, alright? You don’t. Yes, he was your dad but that doesn’t justify the things he said to you. No one should say such awful things to a person, especially not to their kid. You don’t need him. You’re gonna be just fine, you hear me? You have me and Herc and Eliza and Alex and you are going to be fine.”

John’s lip quivered as Lafayette continued to speak. After a minute, the dam broke and the tears were coming out of him at free range. He gripped at Lafayette’s arms, needing something to hold onto, needing some stability.

Alexander watched all of this unfold in front of him. Part of him wanted to go comfort John, wanted to hold his crying lover. The rest of him knew that he should wait it out and let him have his moment with Lafayette. Fully knowing that John hates being the center of attention in moments like this. So Alexander waited it out, waited until John and Lafayette finally let go of each other to make his presence known.

“Everything okay in here?”

“Yeah,” John said, wiping his eyes. “Yeah, I’m good for now.”

“I’m gonna go see if Herc and Eliza are awake.” Lafayette said, smiling at the couple.

John stood and walked over to his boyfriend, hugging him tightly. He pulled back after a moment and looked Alexander in the eye.

“Thank you for being in my life.” He whispered. “I don’t know what I would do without you in my corner.”

“Always.” He responds. “I’m always going to be here for you.”  

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea for this story since I started the series. So I really hope that y'all like it. Please let me know what you thought about it or if you see any mistakes because its unbeta'd. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!


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